Visits to detainees and protection work now underway in Mali - Diabaly, Jan. 21 - Photo courtesy of Reuters/Joe Penney

A colleague and I visited a Malian place of detention two days ago in Mopti to register detainees and monitor their treatment and conditions of detention.

It was first time ICRC delegates visited persons held in relation to the current conflict.

Despite being unnacustomed to ICRC visits, detaining authorites respected key modalities and we were able to see all detainees in private, as we do worldwide. More detainees will be visited by our Bamako team in coming days.

The ICRC was formally granted access to detainees across Mali and starting to visit places of detention in the field was a priority. Another was to start documenting allegations of exactions against the civilian population that recently surfaced in the public arena.

With these essential activities now well underway, Jean-Nicolas Marti, head of our regional delegation in Niger-Mali, explains how we tackle detention and protection issues in what remains a very fluid environment where access to the field can still be a challenge.

You must install and select at least one player to be able to play the audio.

INTERCROSS

Intercross is the blog of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Washington D.C.. It is a place for timely news, commentary on armed conflict and violence, humanitarian action, and the rules of war.

Intercross was started in 2011 as a blog and morphed into a podcast-only site in December 2018. (We are no longer actively adding blog content to the site, however you can still peruse our archive of rich content from the beginning here.)

RSS FEED

**Intercross, the Podcast disclaimer: Just because something or someone is featured here, doesn't mean we endorse or agree with the institutions they represent. Views expressed on the platforms we may highlight don't necessarily represent those of the ICRC.**